January 28, 2020 – The Liceo Classico e Linguistico I.Kant (Rome), in collaboration with the Wallenberg Foundation and the Associazione I.T.A.C.A., hosted a special conference entitled: “The Jews at the Garbatella: an oral history experience”.
The students of the writing expression laboratory of the High-School presented to the public the findings of their research about Jewish families from Garbatella who were helped to hide from the Nazi by their neighbors.
Here some rescues discovered during the research:
The Manasse family was saved by getting on and off a tram during the mopping up on 16 October 1943; in a sense, the tram becomes like a “House of Life”. This family escapes thank to the help Uras family: Mr. Paolo who works in the center of Rome knows that the Nazi fascists are going to the Garbatella, So he immediately calls his wife at the phone. His wife knows that the Manasse family doesn’t have a telephone, so she sends to the neighbors her daughter Valeria, 8 years old, not realizing that the little girl could have been involved in the mopping up.
Paolo was the grandfather of the Dean of the school Ivana Uras and Valeria is her aunt!
The 93-year-old Mr. Giacomo Anav presented a moving account by telling his story that was video recorded. His 4 brothers were taken to extermination camps. He miraculously managed to save himself thanks to Father Daelli and Father Melani, Righteous Among the Nations, first in the “little church” of Saint ‘Isidoro and Saint Eurasia” then in a convent run by French nuns.
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Mr. Di Nepi testifies that his mother Mrs. Spagnoletto was saved by her neighbor Teresa Scorzoni.
The IRWF was represented at the event by Ms. Elena Colitto Castelli, Coordinator of the Houses of Life project in Italy and by Ms. Silvia Costantini, Vice-President of the IRWF.
